What Slovaks call olympiad is a competition among students to see who knows more on something. I remember doing something similar with spelling when I was at my last year in high school, and getting to regional round. Here it’s a bit more serious since they have olympiads for almos every subject, and it’s a matter of prestige for the school having winner students in that stuff, even if it’s another excuse to miss classes. And there I was last Thursday, part of the jury for the regional olympiad on Spanish language, and I swear that had nothing to do with my students winning first and third position, they just had good teachers… before I arrived in Slovakia.